Saturday, 25 August 2012

Contemporary Quilt have been asked to run the Festival of Quilts Tombola in 2013 and I am the project co-ordinator!
It will be a Bookwrap/ Book cover Tombola and we want everyone to take part and donate a Bookwrap. All the details are on Bookwrap Gems website .
I've started off with some experiments and added a few photos here:

I have even found a use for some of my 2010 Journal quilts which turn into lovely bookwraps!

Where does the time go, its been a week since festival and I'm only now catching up! Although I spent 2 days at Festival this year I really only managed to do justice to about half of what I had intended to see!
The most interesting galleries to me this year were: European Art Quilts; PB Retro; Masters 2; CQ @ 10; Anne Worringer and Kate Findley. They were especially interesting as my personal focus for this year was the surface treatments of the quilts, decorative stitching and quilting. In these galleries I saw work that was mind boggling; stunning in its simplicity and complexity in surface decoration.
This focus meant that I outside theses and the Art and Contemporary open sections I saw very little. I think that I am a great deal more selective about what I spend time in front of, preferring to educate myself rather than just gawp!
I was really interested in Angela Schenz's Dancing Leaves with her use of small rectangular tablets quilted and embroidered with a flurry of red organza leaves hovering on top.

Close up with details

I have come away with some real food for thought the following is just a sample of the techniques that I'd like to experiment with in my work in the furure:

Using short randon stitches to quilt, creating new shapes on the surface.

Frayed edges to quilts

Grids stitched on soluable fabric or paper and partilly removed

Leaving abstract shapes unquilted, draws attention to these new shapes

Shibori elements as surface decoration

Use of regular repeated rows of simple hand stitches

Using linen backgrounds

Using markal paint stick on already quilted fabric.

I thought that the individual exhibitions at this year's Festival were of an exceptionally high standard and showcased some really exciting work. Having entered a piece for the CQ @10 challenge I was stunned by the exhibition and can so see why mine did not make it to the show! The curating worked so well to create a cohesive visual flow with such disparate creations. Well done judges and Hilary for doing such a wonderful job.

Sunday, 5 August 2012

Isn't it strange that you can only sometimes see the mistakes in a piece when you see it through someone else's eyes. It was only when I saw this piece here on the blog I realised how unhappy I was with the composition, and yet it was sitting on the design wall. How strange is that?
Yes, it is a scrap quilt, but usual design principles still apply, although clearly not when I stitched these bits together!
I have tried some changes, short of starting again, which I think give better balance. The lesson I'm learning is that taking a photo and coming back to the photo a little later is better than the design wall. I know that in the past I've held pieces up in the mirror to get a different perspective on the design and that has helped. So perhaps a combination of filters is needed when you design on the hoof as I tend to do!

I have printing blocks to go in the blue square and some beading to add as well. I'll have a break from it while doing something else and make the next decisions in a week or so.

About Me

I am a fabric adict. Its rare that I have more than a day away from doing something creative with fabric or thread, my passion for textiles has prompted me to set up this blog.
I have become an adict gradually over the years and now I have the time to devote to my adiction. I got here through the interest, patience, understanding and teaching of a number of talented women who nurtured my skills, fed my interest and gave praise and encouragement as I developed this lifelong interest. I'm so grateful to them for sharing and for helping me understand that to make progress one has to make mistakes first and then learn to put them right.
I am on a journey, beginning a voyage of discovery to develop my creativity and move my art forwards.

My Reading List - don't you just love to know what others read? This is now a rolling list

January 2014Michael Ridpath - Fatal Error

Alex Grey - The Bird that didn't SingOverviewI have never kept a list of everything I have read before - its quite fascinating to look back on. I was prompted to attempt the list because of a notebook belonging to my grandfather that I found when clearing my father's house. My grandfather had kept a list of his reading from 1909 to 1973 and he was a "serious" reader, reading in French, German, Hebrew and Greek as well as all the English classics and modern novels as they came out in the mid 20th century, but largely non-fiction. he was clearly a fascinating man and I am really sorry that I never got to know that side of him while he was alive.As you can see I can't match him, but he is an inspiration when I'm stuck and I am planning a greater diet of non-fiction in the new year. What this space.